Weekly Update! NSV and Conquering Fears

It's been about a week since I checked in so here I am! HI! :)

I had an outstanding May!  It has been one of the best months since I started this weightloss journey oh so long ago! (Side note: Is weightloss spelled as one word or is it weight loss?  I honestly don't know! HAHA I am assuming it's two words because weightloss has a red squiggle under it.  But I am so used to making it one word so I may just stay wrong...I like to live on the wild side).  Anyways...back to May being a kick ass month...I had goals of working out at least 5x a week and every week in May I accomplished killed that goal.  In fact...2 out of 5 weeks I went 6x including one span of working out 7 days in a row! I love it!  That's what you call motivation and determination.  I am so motivated right now!  I know it isn't smart to workout 7 days in a row without giving your body a rest so I made sure to incorporate a low impact day in the middle where I just went outside and walked.  Not a super intense workout but it was at least something active!  That's important.  Here is my weekly recap:

Wednesdays are always my kick ass days.  I do back to back classes of zumba and kickboxing.  Wednesday night Zumba is my FAVORITE class (I know I always say that) and it is taught by my amazing trainer Trish.  It's so much fun and a great workout.  Immediately following the zumba class is a kickboxing class.  This class kicks my ass, esp since it's right after zumba. It's a lot of fun and high energy so I like doing it.  Wednesday is a great cardio day and I love the feeling of being exhausted and getting my ass kicked!

2 Hours of cardio and 1,000 calories!
YES!

Thursday nights are always my wildcard nights.  I have no classes planned and I can pretty much do any kind of workout I want.  I used to use Thursdays as a rest day but obviously that has changed!  Since I had already worked out 5 days in a row that week and knew I had a training session the next day, I decided to tone it down a bit on Thursday.  It was a really nice day out and I just did not want to go to the gym. Sometimes going to the gym everyday gets boring and I needed to see new scenery and get some fresh air so I took my workout outside.  When I was 315lbs and just starting my journey I would always walk for exercise.  It was pretty much the only thing I could really do at the time and I didn't belong to a gym.  It is great exercise and totally free!  I started out doing what I could which was about 2-2.5 miles and just kept adding mileage as time went by.  Now I can easily walk 5-6 miles and anything less than 4 is just not enough for me.  On Thursday my goal was 5 miles.  When I walk I use an awesome gps workout app that tracks your location, route, miles, pace, time and calories.  It's a really awesome app but for some reason it keeps crapping out on me.  I will start my walk and then all of a sudden it just stops tracking.  It makes me so mad because when you have a distance goal...not working for 10 minutes is a big deal!  I probably lost like .5+ mile!  Annoying.  So of course that happened and I had to switch from Map My Run to Run Keeper.  Both are great apps and I highly recommend them for any workout activity outside.

Thursday night walk!
More like 5.5miles! I'm ok with that!

That Thursday night walk was exactly what I needed! A nice refreshing active night.  Although...that walk gave me some killer blisters! UGH! They are intense and pretty bad.  I don't know why my sneaks gave me blisters but they did and they huuurt. Bummer.  Anyways...

I had a super fun weekend planned last weekend and it included a lot of drinking and fun in Delaware!  I knew that I would be indulging in alcohol last weekend so I planned for it all week (hence the 7x in a row workouts).  Friday before I started my weekend I met with my trainer.  Because I do so much cardio on my own she wanted to focus mostly on weight training with a specific target of my upper body.  Ouch.  My arms are my worst feature.  So flabby and weak.  I HATE them!  So this makes me happy.  I want to try to tone them and tighten them up.  They are so bad that I refuse to wear tank tops and sleeveless tops in public.  There is always a cardigan haha. Concentrating mostly on my arms is awesome. I can already see a baby muscle when I flex...I love it!  When I met with Trish she made me do all sorts of arm exercises.  Bench press, bicep curls, rows, playing with that large heavy rope...I forget what else.  Basically she killed my arms and they were sore! I kept joking with her that I know she was doing this so I couldn't lift any beers to my mouth that weekend. HA! Probably true.

Future gun show!
I love this pic!
388 calories isn't bad for just lifting! Right?
Almost forgot...conquered a HUGE fear that day!

 A weightloss (see...one word lol) journey isn't all about losing weight. To me anyhow.  For me it is also about setting goals and accomplishing them and growing as a person in every way.  I remember taking my first body pulse and abs class and we had to do "box jumps" on the stepper thing.  I was so nervous to do this.   I had never tried it and my heart was racing.  I was so scared that I would try to jump on this thing and fall off or break it.  So I tried it once...it was a train wreck and just decided I would never try it again.  So on Friday when Trish tried to get me to do them...I told her that I never do them and I was scared to.  Um..she didn't take this well.  She made me try again (that's why I love her).  I was so nervous to do it thinking I was going to embarrass myself in front of her or do something awful.  At first we set the stepper low and I just tried it and I did it! YAY! Fear conquered.  We then added height and I did that one too!  I felt so silly being scared of box jumps now that I can do them!  I am excited to do them in the next class!  I love accomplishing things! Makes me feel so good! :)

After my training session my weekend was going to officially start.  I headed down to Delaware to attend Alumni Weekend at the University of Delaware.  You know...that one weekend a year where it's socially acceptable for old people to get wasted on campus and sleep in a dorm room...yes that weekend.

Delabration Mug Night!

Needless to say all of my college friends and I drank the night away and had a blast.  Of course drinking isn't a healthy part of weightloss but for me...it's going to happen from time to time.  All I can do is plan for it, have a great time doing it and then work my butt off to recover from it.  No regrets here! It was a fab weekend for sure! :)

Sunday morning I was back to my normal routine!  I hit the gym and did an hour of cardio.  I opted for the elliptical because my blisters were still pretty bad and I thought running would only make them worse. Also, side note, non scale victory (NSV) while I was at the alumni weekend I received a tshirt.  I was totally bummed when the biggest size they had was an XL because I usually wear XXL.  I took an XL anyways and just figured I would keep it until I fit in it. Ummmm tried it on for my Sunday workout and it fit totally normal.  I love it! I have noticed that I have been somewhat swimming in some of my XXL workout shirts...love the NSVs! 

Sunday workout and an awesome NSV!

After a fun weekend this Sunday night workout got me back on track and motivated for the week.  I food prepped some chicken for the week and was even back in the gym Monday night for zumba.  Finally they got rid of the crappy instructor and we had a decent one this time.  She had a fun routine and I actually enjoyed it!  I didn't hit my 500 calorie goal during the hour long class so I went on a treadmill and ran for 15 minutes. Of course I couldn't run the full 15 minutes so I would run like 6 minutes, walk a few then I finished the workout running.  It felt amazing and I was dripping sweat.  I really pushed myself running on a faster speed and it felt awesome.

Monday night workout!
1 hour zumba and 15 minutes of running.
Dripping sweat.

Tuesday nights are always my body works and abs class taught by my trainer. This is the most challenging class for me and I love going to it. I seriously get my ass kicked and I get so mad when I can't do certain workouts.  I love getting mad because that just gives me motivation to try harder and not give up. I get so embarrassed when everyone is doing pushups and I have to do them on a wall...I hate it so much. So much in fact that it makes me keep returning to class so one day I can do them the right way.  UGH! See I am so mad just typing about it! HA!  My ultimate goal is to do the WHOLE class without a modified exercise.  I am going to add that to my goal page right now!  I still can only do about 2/3 of the class.  I always skip the burpees and pushups. Damnit. ONE DAY!  I already conquered the box jumps so I know I can do this!

Tuesday night class.
Dripping sweat=success

Tonight I have my back to back cardio classes. 1 hour of zumba followed by 1 hour of kickboxing. As always my goal is 1,000 calories.  I love Wednesday nights! Let's do this!!!!